Athlon: Ranking the ACC's Football Coaching Jobs in 2015 (Expert Poll)

CuseJacket

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http://athlonsports.com/college-football/ranking-accs-football-coaching-jobs-2015-expert-poll

Here is how the panel voted...

1- Florida State
2- Clemson
3- Virginia Tech
4- Miami (Fla.)
5- Louisville
6- North Carolina
7- Georgia Tech
8- N.C. State
9- Virginia
10- Pittsburgh
11- Duke
12- Boston College
13- Syracuse
14- Wake Forest

Re: Georgia Tech
There are certain obstacles one must clear to win at Tech. First, the city of Atlanta is a poor sports town and produces less talent than one might assume in a market dominated by its SEC brethren from Athens. Academic standards can also hinder success. But this program has consistently been competitive despite some more interesting hires.

247's JC Shurburtt offers his 2 cents on the GT job: http://georgiatech.247sports.com/Bolt/Athlon-ranks-ACC-football-jobs-36803608
I disagree with this statement on Georgia Tech:"First, the city of Atlanta is a poor sports town and produces less talent than one might assume in a market dominated by its SEC brethren from Athens.". While I do think Atlanta is somewhat over-recruited by most programs (it's easily accessible as you can fly there from nearly anywhere in the country- direct- and all the schools have at least some talent), the thing that helps Tech succeed (besides its difficult to defend offense) is the fact that it IS located in Atlanta. Yes, that market is poor in terms of supporting the Falcons, Braves and Hawks, but Tech is a different story. Anyone who has been to a Thursday night game on the flats knows what I am talking about.
 

BBK

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If i was unbiased, I think I would have us only moved up one spot-ahead of UNC, but that is hard to say.
 

slugboy

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I thought from the title they were saying who had DONE the best coaching job last year.

Despite some decent "experts", meh. Any one of those schools at the top was nothing at one point, and it'd be easy for any school to end up nowhere in sports.
 

thwgjacket

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UNC, Louisville, and VPI??? Are you kidding me? They have given us Michael Vick and Choo Choo Justice and Bobby Petrino.
Louisville has massive amounts of money. It's also a larger city with no pro sports team so they get a lot of fan support. It's not a college town. As of 2014 it has 600k people and U of L is their default pro team.
 

33jacket

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I think you have to look at the job today and reference it to how the school has historically done.

UNC can't be ahead of tech for many reasons. Its got 3 schools next to it and VT just north of it to compete with in a very non-rich area for athletes. Yes NC produces some, but by gosh its nothing like GA, Florida etc. Yes tech has its challenges too, but simply put its a better job than UNC, and history proves it. If UNC was a better job than tech, than in the past 20 years they should be doing better than us in conf. They haven't. They have had many coaches, including very good ones, and still were just ok. Its just not that great a job even though the campus is nice and facilities are solid. The fact is kids don't go there with enough consistency to be good.

I think a healthy debate right now would be between Miami, GT and Louisville. Miami is and isn't a good job for many reasons....but they do get anyone in that program however their facilities stink....Louisville has a chance to be a great job...they remind me a tad of Oregon 15 years ago...It may today be better than the GT job...but I reallly think you can debate these 3.

For me GT is a 6, maybe 5 job in the ACC. To be honest VT is a declining job IMO. Louisville may be on the way up. Miami has been in decline. You could argue GT as high as 4 and low as 6 and not be totally wrong.
 

AE 87

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I would tend to agree with the analysis of @33jacket except for this past off-season. I think that any fanbase that would put a football coach with CPJ's track-record under heat during the last off-season is not very attractive from a coach's stand point.

Also, I think we have to consider budget. Would we have the money to pay top notch OC, DC, and a head coach? I haven't looked at the numbers but I suspect that if we add the salary of our highest paid offensive coach to CPJ's salary, we would come up with a number less than what many programs pay their HC and OC. Just a guess.
 

forensicbuzz

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Louisville has massive amounts of money. It's also a larger city with no pro sports team so they get a lot of fan support. It's not a college town. As of 2014 it has 600k people and U of L is their default pro team.
you can't quote the population of the city itself and fairly say it's larger. Atlanta is a much, much larger metropolitan area than Louisville. I agree with the rest. There is no sports competition in the city except for the ponies.
 

forensicbuzz

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I think this question is answered by the coaching talent each school attracts. When an opening is available, how well do these schools attract and hire the top coaches? I wouldn't say Fedora was highly sought after, but Butch Davis was and so was Mack Brown. Petrino, as bad as he is personally, is a damn good coach, and he replaced a highly touted up-and-comer. Miami has a history of stellar coaches too.

Can't say Tech has attracted attention from the elite coaching circle. I love CPJ, but he wasn't going to get looks (and still won't) from factories. GOL was already in the fold when he took over; we didn't go out and get him. BL [sic] and CCG weren't sexy hires. Maybe going back to Bobby Ross.
 

thwgjacket

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you can't quote the population of the city itself and fairly say it's larger. Atlanta is a much, much larger metropolitan area than Louisville. I agree with the rest. There is no sports competition in the city except for the ponies.
I didn't mean it was a larger city than Atlanta. Just a larger sized city than an average sized one. I now see how my wording could have been confusing.
 
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